Friday, July 14, 2006

A Scanner Darkly

You can watch the first 24 minutes of A Scanner Darkly, Richard Linklater's rotoscoped film here. Click on the selection called First 24 Minutes. As the film is only in 190 theaters in North America, I'm guessing that this might be the only chance for some of you to sample it until the DVD release.

There's also some interview footage with the people behind the film on the same webpage.

6 comments:

This lost me after five minutes.Most of the footage looks like live action faces imperfectly superimposed on obvious roto. It is unpleasant and disturbing to watch.Did they use that new roto program to do this? It looks like it. And they had a great many 'supervising animators' on something that is basically special effects on live action film.

I tuned in to see the credits and found it hard to shut it off. I did, since I don't have the time to see it now, but I have a screening this coming Tuesday. Richard Linklater brings so much intelligence, wit, and filmaking savvy to everything he does; I'm looking forward to it.

Thanks for the link. As a matter of fact, thanks for everything on your site. It's wholly original; completely you, and it's great.

I'm looking forward to seeing the movie, myself. I have a problem with animators dismissing this movie as not being animation. It IS animation, just a different form of it. A creative process is taking place, with the artists manipulating the shapes and making concientious efforts in moving these shapes. Sounds like animation to me. Maybe not Nine Old Men material, but it's definitely animation.

You can agree to disagree. I consider this film special effects on a live action movie. It is not animation since the special effects artist does not create the performance or even modify it very much.The technique is disturbing to look at but doesn't have the eyeball-popping quality of a WAKING LIFE, which I walked out on due to eyestrain.I WOULD consider WAKING LIFE animated.

About Me

I've worked as an animator, writer, producer and director in TV animation for 29 years. I created the cgi series Monster By Mistake.
I hold a Masters degree from York University in Cinema and Media Studies and am currently teaching animation at Sheridan College.
I can be contacted at mark(dot)mayerson(at)sheridanc(dot)on(dot)ca.